


On Wings

by mystiri1



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Angst, Character Study, Flying, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-26
Updated: 2011-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystiri1/pseuds/mystiri1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Sheppard has always wanted to fly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Wings

When he was a child, John Sheppard dreamed of flying.

He could picture every moment of it, feel it with a vividness that belied the fuzzy reality of dreams. He knew exactly how the air felt as his wings caught it, surprisngly solid and tangible; how it buoyed him up with ease. He knew how the wind felt as it passed along his body, over and above, the way his eyes lidded to protect themselves from the rapid airflow. He knew what the landscape looked like from so many miles above, passing underneath him at an incredible rate as he flew high above the earth.

It was an amazing feeling, wild and exhilarating and free, and there were days when all he wanted to do was go to sleep so that he could experience it again; a thrilling antidote to the stifling existence he lived within the confines of his father's house and his father's rules.

Eventually, the dreams stopped.

  


* * * * *

  


He joined the United States Air Force. And although it had plenty of rules and regulations of its own, to John it felt like the ultimate break for freedom, away from his father and his father's plans for him. Best of all, he got to fly.

He studied aeronautical engineering and mathematics on the Air Force's ticket, could describe the competing forces that kept a plane in the air in exacting detail, but flying itself seemed curiously lacking. It was still better than anything he had done in waking life – the speed, the sky around him, the world and all its problems disappearing into the distance below – but there were times when it still seemed clumsy and slow, for all that others praised him for the apparent ease with which he handled fighter jets. It was easy, intuitive, for John, but the air felt wrong as it passed under his wings, the metal skin of the plane that separated him from the wind an unnecessary barrier. It was so close to what he wanted and at the same time, subtly wrong.

When he was offered the chance to fly helicopters instead, he jumped at the chance. It was still flying, but different enough that he didn't constantly feel the sharp lack of his own wings.

  


* * * * *

  


There's nothing really extraordinary about P3X-259. It has a small village, who are friendly and helpful, and a ruined 'temple of the Ancestors' that, thankfully, is not sacred enough the villagers will kill them for investigating it. Actually, now that he thinks about it, John decides that is pretty extraordinary.

Arcus, the village headman, is leading them to the 'temple' which Rodney thinks might be a lab from some of the energy readings. It's built hard up against a cliff, and the 'ruins' are where part of the rock has crumbled away on one side, debris obscuring the original outer shape of the building. But what is clear is the statue on a plinth by the entrance, standing guard in a way that reminds John of lions and other such creatures back Earth. If the other side was still intact, he knows there would be a matching statue there, the pair of them keeping watch.

And they look kind of familiar.

“The, uh, statue,” he asks Arcus, trying to be casual. “Is that a local animal?”

“Oh, no,” Arcus says, and his smile widens until he's positively beaming. “You've never seen one? I understand its extremely rare to find such artwork intact any more – we're quite proud of it.” And clearly he is. “The statue is of one of the Ancestors.”

John blinks, and stares at the statue uncertainly. It's ridiculous to draw such parallels here, a galaxy away from his home planet and the myths and legends that he knows, but the statue looks like a dragon. Huge and lizard-like with wings, it's far more likely that this is some local variant of dinosaur, but it still _looks_ like a dragon.

Rodney is ignoring them both in favour of staring down at the device in his hand and muttering over energy readings. He glances up, gives them both an impatient look, and asks, “Well? Are we going to go inside or just stand out here chatting all day?”

He waits until he and Rodney are alone – Rodney poring over the intact machinery inside, opening a console to wire his laptop into it and determine how it works – to ask.

“Hey, McKay?”

There's a noise from Rodney that might have been acknowledgement.

“Did you see that statue out front?”

“The one shaped like a dragon? Soft sciences will go nuts over that one,” Rodney says absently. “AR5 found one on M5X-218, and they couldn't talk about anything else for weeks. One of the senior anthropologists is Chinese, and there was all this talk about congruent mythologies and universal consciousness, and other nonsense. Chinese royalty used to claim _their_ ancestors were dragons, too. I suppose whatever team comes to follow up here will have to bring a few of them to harrass the locals for stories. Waste of time, when you consider – Dammit! Get over here, Sheppard, and see if you can get this to turn on.” And then Rodney is derailed from one familiar tirade – the fluffy-headed idiocy of the soft sciences and their inability to contribute anything really useful beyond translation services, which they're always behind on – to another: the fact that his artificial gene is not good enough for some Ancient technology, and only Sheppard's 'super-gene' will suffice, because as far as the technology is concerned, John Sheppard practically _is_ an Ancient.

John, his head full of statues and dragons and dreams of flying, thinks that he's still not Ancient enough.


End file.
